Oh so lazy Spicy Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

This soup is oh-so-lazy because it’s mostly made with stuff from jars. About the easiest quickest spicy tomato and roasted red pepper soup you can make.Yes, this requires little more than blending and boiling.
There’s an old twimii recipe Spicy Tomato Soup and it’s not great. It’s made with tomatoes, balti curry sauce and chickpeas. The flavours don’t really work but I liked how it was so quick to make. I decided to replace it with something tastier that’s just as quick and simple to make.
So I was going to tag this convenience health food. But it’s contains a tablespoon of dark brown sugar and about 150 ml of single cream. So it’s not exactly heart-healthy. But it tastes good.
Why did I add so much cream to it?
Well, I had cream to use up. And I thought I’d just use it here to make the soup look nice. I was going to say it was an optional ingredient. Not really necessary. But then I whipped up the cream with a little squeeze of lemon, some chopped basil and parsley and it tastes so good in this I don’t think I can call it optional. It’s required. Although I guess basil chopped up with a little good quality olive oil might be a good vegan alternative.
So it may not be the healthiest bowl. But it’s tasty. And with two dried chillies it’s certainly got a nice little kick to it.
By the way if you fancy a soup with the balti curry sauce flavour that really does work try this lovely Butternut Squash one.

Ingredients
- 500ml hot vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon dark brown soft sugar
- 2 dried chillies
- 1 400g tin tomatoes
- 2 roasted red peppers
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- salt,
- 150ml single cream
- squeeze of fresh lemon juice
- some fresh basil leaves, sliced
- some parsley, sliced
- oil for cooking
Instructions
- Make 500 ml of hot vegetable stock. Stir in 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. Stir in 2 dried chillies and leave to soak for 10 minutes.
- Add the tinned tomatoes, roasted red peppers, garlic and soaked chillies to a food mixer and blend until well blended.
- Heat a little oil in a saucepan and pour in the mix from the blender. Bring to the boil on a high heat and stir around for 2 minutes. Add the stock and bring back to the boil. Let it boil on high heat for a couple of minutes. Stir in a pinch of salt then cover the pan, reduce the heat and let simmer for another 15 minutes.
- Beat the cream with a squeeze of lemon till it forms soft peaks. Stir in the herbs.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and taste the soup leave for 5 minutes to cool a little. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Stir in 3/4 of the herbed cream and use the rest for decoration.
